Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Adam Vaughn

The city has be told by city staffers that the Gardiner will require 1/2 billion dollars over the next decade in repairs to keep it from crumbling.

Comrade Miller who was planning on tearing the expressway down stopped all but emergency work on the eastern portion.

The Star's unofficial choice for the next mayor, Adam Vaugn is saying the city should sell it to private interests and let them toll and maintain it. Yeah that's worked really well on the 407 where it almost cost me 10 bucks from the 401 to the next exit.

it's all coming down --No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

Even a big city like Toronto shouldn't be going it alone on an expressway.

Although many large US cities do the day-to-day maintenance of large highways, much funding comes from the states and from the US federal government, especially for upgrades and major repairs.

Ontario has a provincial gasoline tax, and this highway clearly should be a provincial (King's) highway.

A former golf pro Premier of ours downloaded responsibility for a number of miles of our 400 series highways onto the City of Toronto. While the Gardiner Expressway was *never* a provincial responsibility, the downloading of the costs of maintaining between 10-16 lanes x about 40 mile length of highway (about 25 miles of 401 plus 427 and 400 within Toronto's borders) is also taking cash from city coffers.

There's nothing wrong with rebuilding the Gardiner and turning it into a toll road - but don't privatize the thing like the former golf pro Premier did with the 407. If we need to license toll technology, then fine, do that - but the public should own the road. This is nothing new for Ontario - as was discussed here before »Re: Speed limiters on trucks declared unconstitutional

the downloading of the costs of maintaining between 10-16 lanes x about 40 mile length of highway (about 25 miles of 401 plus 427 and 400 within Toronto's borders) is also taking cash from city coffers.

Wrong. The only freeway that was downloaded to the City of Toronto in 1997/98 was about 5km of the Queen Elizabeth Way east of the 427 that was made a part of the Gardiner Expressway. (before Last Parade jumps in, yes, 2A was downloaded too, but it may as well be the same as Kingston Road) None of the 401, 427 or 400 was downloaded to the City and are still 100% provincial highways.

The 409 west of the 427 was also "downloaded" but to the GTAA, not any municipal authority.

Quebec is quite possibly the worst example of how to manage roadways, but here, all highways/expressways are under the purview of the province, and all surface roads are under the purview of the municipality.--Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

Re: Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Adam Vaughn

The city has be told by city staffers that the Gardiner will require 1/2 billion dollars over the next decade in repairs to keep it from crumbling.

Comrade Miller who was planning on tearing the expressway down stopped all but emergency work on the eastern portion.

The Star's unofficial choice for the next mayor, Adam Vaugn is saying the city should sell it to private interests and let them toll and maintain it. Yeah that's worked really well on the 407 where it almost cost me 10 bucks from the 401 to the next exit.

LMAO...you made me laugh with the headline. I just heard in the news the lefty schmuck is blaming Ford Administration. Yes the same one who was never allowed to govern since the election.

"Councillor Gord Perks, on the left, blamed the administration of Mayor Rob Ford for sneaking around council to kill an environmental assessment that would have given councillors the means to make a decision. This administration doesnt seem to care about the technical facts, they dont seem to care about the financial facts and they dont seem to care about what Torontonians want, he said."

And forgot add that 40 millions were spend on repairs. But they dont know what and where it was.

Re: Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Adam Vaughn

Well, at least they are calling it the "Ford Administration" and not the "Ford Regime".

Everyone know that the Gardiner is in rough shape for a long, long time. This is a infrastructure deficit and the previous government(s) failed to take care of.

In other new, many cities around Ontario and Canada have major infrastructure deficits, and in Kitchener it's $1,500,000,000.00 (yes, $1.5 BILLION) -- and they want money from the Feds and ON to help out with it. And that is for just for the core area's....However, we do have a $900,000,000.00 flashy new LRT being built, we had $100,000,000 for downtown redevelopment (and for what it's worth, it was well spent) and $70,000,000 for a new Consolidated Maintenance Facility (know known as the "KOF" (Kitchener Operations Facility)) but if we had money for that, money can be found for the other "more important" things.

In other words, none-provincially owned, or none-federally owned, should just figure it out. (Although Kitchener is suggesting that the Feds need to hand out $5,000,000,000.00 to the cities to help out with this -- GST money on gas purchase -- and I agree)--If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. - Albert Einstein

Re: Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Adam Vaughn

The Star's unofficial choice for the next mayor, Adam Vaugn is saying the city should sell it to private interests and let them toll and maintain it. Yeah that's worked really well on the 407 where it almost cost me 10 bucks from the 401 to the next exit.

It could work out very well for Adam Vaugn, he can get a cushy consulting gig after he retires from politics making millions a year for the company that buys it.

The nice thing is, he wouldn't even have to disclose the income after the fact. Don't we have a great system up here? Get us in, and you're set for life. It's all legal too!

I personally dont like the concept of using Federal taxes for maintenance of roadways in this country (maybe Highway 1, but thats it). Provincial highways are the responsibilities of the province, and expressways serving major cities like the GTA is solely the responsibility of the city it serves. I.E. Why should tax money from BC be used to fix the mess in Toronto?

A city (or province) and its growth should be proportional, more people = more taxes = more robust infrastructure built using said taxes. If you build more than you need, you're gonna have a bad time down the road. Thats just poor planning, dont ask others to bail you out.

I personally dont like the concept of using Federal taxes for maintenance of roadways in this country (maybe Highway 1, but thats it)

Um, you do know that the Trans-Canada Highway outside of the four western provinces has a number other than 1, right?

The only highways that receive federal money - and it is only partial funding, as highways constitutionally are still the responsibilities of each province - are part of the National Highways System. More information is available at »www.tc.gc.ca/eng/policy/acg-acgd ··· 2149.htm and a map of the highways that are part of that system is available here.

Provincial highways are the responsibilities of the province, and expressways serving major cities like the GTA is solely the responsibility of the city it serves. I.E. Why should tax money from BC be used to fix the mess in Toronto?

A very---forgive the pun---provincial attitude.

The expressways in the GTA are carrying a great deal of national traffic, not just local commuters.

You might argue differently about the specific case of the Gardiner, but you made the more general statement: [expressways serving major cities like the GTA is solely the responsibility of the city it serves]. That's not what having a country is all about.

There is a national interest in supporting the flow of people and goods.

It's also important in coping with natural disasters, and in national defence.

That's why the US Interstates---which have been very successful overall for my country---were originally 90 percent funded with Federal gasoline tax revenues. And BTW the system is officially called National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

Low population states like Wyoming, and low population provinces like Saskatchewan, should not have to bear the total cost of carrying NATIONAL traffic through their borders.

You can't get from one side of Canada to the other without going through Saskatchewan. But Saskatchewan has only 3 percent of the population. It is NOT an Ontario. Yet how is it to support good roads to carry national traffic east and west? Some burdens have to be shared.

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Now, I would agree that The Gardiner should not be considered a National highway.

But it is only an accident of history, and a stubborn failure to correct a mistake, that left it out of the Ontario provincial system.

All of Toronto's expressways, both built and unbuilt, were intended to be municipally-controlled and maintained extensions of the provincial freeways. The Gardiner was the municipal extension of the QEW. The Richview Expressway would have been the municipal extension of the 403. The DVP is the municipal extension of the 404. What is now Black Creek Drive would have been a full freeway and a municipal extension of Highway 400. The Spadina (now Allen Road) and Crosstown would have tied them all into each other.

Though, at least prior to 1997/98, the non-QEW portion of the Gardiner Expressway had the status of provincial connecting link - a municipal road that received occasional provincial funding in return for carrying a provincial highway number. Allen Road and the DVP were never so lucky.

Toronto wasn't the only one. Windsor has a municipal freeway (though it has bounced back and forth between provincial and municipal more times than I can count). Ottawa planned a bunch that were never built and eventually had a provincial freeway downloaded to them. Hamilton has two that were always planned to be municipal and they had planned three more that were never built. London has the first-leg-of-the-402-that-ended-up-never-being-a-part-of-the-402 that was downloaded to them in the early 90s and has plans for more municipal freeways. Niagara Falls has part of Highway 420 downloaded to Niagara Region. This is par for the course in Ontario. It's really nothing unusual. It is also my understanding that in Alberta Edmonton and Calgary maintain significant portions of the freeways that pass through their borders, too.

I have no problems with provinces like Sask. using federal funding for the trans Canada. National highway should be maintained by the nation, that I agree with (hence my highway 1 comment).

However, to use that money to build/ maintain provincial or municipal roadways does not benefit the remainder of the nation. i.e. The expressways in the GTA carry provincial traffic, and local commuters. Far away provinces like BC shouldn't have to pay for that as they dont benefit from the improvements of lets say, the Gardiner Expressway.

It all boils down to perspective. The ones who are getting their money taken is always going to say "why are we paying for your mistakes" and the ones who are taking the money are always going to say "its for the benefit for the country". Federal funds shouldn't be squandered on bailing out provincial/municipal screwups and could be spent in far better ways like health care, medical research, education etc.

Denial of federal funding for provincial/municipal projects would be the proper thing to do here. It forces the province and municipalities to make proper decisions. If the local government made bad decisions and screwed up (and the Gardiner Expressway is IMO a screwup), the two options are:1. Raise taxes and cover the maintenance, you'd get unhappy campers as taxes went up.2. Sell the roadway and wipe their hands clean of it, you'd still get unhappy campers as private roadways are tolled and expensive.

Either solution will accomplish the same goal, whoever screwed up is not getting re-elected (or fired).

i think conrad miller should have uploaded it to the province when he had a chance. the province handles their infastructure much better than a single municipality--Happiness is like peeing your pants... Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its Warmth!!

i think conrad miller should have uploaded it to the province when he had a chance. the province handles their infastructure much better than a single municipality

He tried his best. That one cent campaign. So when he couldn't control his spending habit(mainly paying his Union worker buddies) he came up with Land transfer tax. Yey More money for union.

Funny article in Star today.

"Mayor Fords office kept in the dark on crumbling Gardiner"

When a third chunk of concrete plummeted off the Gardiner Expressway this spring, making it apparent something was seriously wrong with the elevated highway, Mayor Rob Fords office ordered an emergency meeting with top city staff and offered a blank cheque to get the situation under control.

Public works chair Denzil Minnan-Wong says that, based on what they were being told, he and the mayors office had every reason to believe the expressway was safe. Documents released to the Star support his claim.

Neither Minnan-Wong nor the mayors office appear to have been sent the damaging engineer memos. The documents suggest the administration was more or less told the same thing as the public: Theres no cause for alarm, the situation is under control and concrete separating from a larger mass is not unusual.

Furthermore, documents show that despite these reassurances, the mayors office ordered extra precautions for public safety.

I read that at the vet, while not blaming him directly (for once) it didn't stop the commentators from blaming him for the mess the Gardiner is in.

For Toronto 500m is a huge chunk of money and IIRC that would represent a 500% tax increase just to cover that money.

Wouldn't stop the Star's choice for Mayor, Adam Vaughn, he could re-direct that money to the "arts" where they rent city buildings for $2/yr and never turn a profit.

For me, I'd rather see them STOP funding the wannabe artists and start fixing the problems with the city. The "arts community" wants funding to be at $25/per capita!!! or roughly $75m.

It's also time for upper level of governments to stop wasting my tax dollars on tax cuts for corporations and get down to the business of funding municipalities where the money is really needed.--No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

Re: Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Afam Vaughn

Quebec is quite possibly the worst example of how to manage roadways, but here, all highways/expressways are under the purview of the province, and all surface roads are under the purview of the municipality.

i was going to say the same thing, the only municipal expressway in all of quebec is the bonaventure from pierre dupuy to the tunnel

Re: Sell the Gardiner Expressway - Adam Vaughn

The decision to shelve a study of tearing down part of the Gardiner Expressway  including six unreleased visions for its future  was first made more than six weeks before Rob Ford was elected mayor, according to internal documents from Waterfront Toronto.

A committee of half-a-dozen staffers from the city and the agency that manages waterfront development opted to put the council-ordered environmental assessment (EA) on hold given the pending election during a conference call on Sept. 16, 2010.

So now they tell us. After Ford been kicked out of office.!@#$ Miller and his Millerites.